ONEILL, NE. – Seventeen individuals were connected to an alleged criminal conspiracy to exploit illegal alien laborers for profit, fraud, wire fraud and money laundering in Nebraska and Minnesota. The ringleader…resided in ONeill.

Juan Pablo Sanchez Delgado, an illegal alien and manager of the La Herradura Mexican Restaurant in ONeill, allegedly made more than $8 million illegal financial transactions through his Great Western Bank accounts.

Court documents reported Delgado required his illegal alien employees through his companies JP and Sons, LLC and J Green Valley, LLC, to convert their paychecks into U.S. currency. He then withheld the proceeds for harboring the aliens. It is suspected these transactions were made at his grocery store and money servicing business El Mercadito in ONeill.

It is all alleged Delgado told the alien workers he was withholding federal taxes that would be submitted to the federal government when he was actually retaining it as illegal proceeds.

Anayancy Castro Hernandez, an employee at Great Western Bank in O’Neill; Alma Hernandez Moreno; and Aracely Heredia Martinez, converted the aliens’ paychecks into U.S. currency.

According to the indictment, between Delgado, his wife Magdalena Nena Castro Benitez, an alien previously deported to Mexico; and their son Antonio Tony De Jesus Castro, born in the U.S., had deposited more than $5.6 million into bank accounts. All of which was from harboring illegal aliens they employed.

Their ownership of assets including La Herradura, Castro Properties, LLC and Las Vegas real estate assets valued over $1 million were under the names of John Good of Atkinson, Antonio Castro and others.